French street artist Oliver Rizzo, aka Speedy Graphito (born 1961) began painting on the streets of Paris in the early 1980s at a time when the scene there was just beginning, and since then has gone on to influence many of the younger artists who have followed. His inspiration can be found in many diverse areas of modern culture, including Manga cartoons, video games and 1950s America, the resulting images a vibrant clash of Pop and Street visuals. Graphito has been working extensively in Los Angeles in recent years, and in 2011 he took part in the city's Dogtown Artists United Art Crawl. 
 
At the Fabien Castanier Gallery in Los Angeles, Speedy presents all new work that explores the mutation and perception of the image through a variety of different mediums, from sculptures and paintings to installations.

Hans Richter: Encounters examines the evolution of German artist Hans Richter’s practice based on his interaction with other artists, writers, filmmakers, and composers. In
Richter’s most significant retrospective since the 1980s, the
multidisciplinary exhibition showcases 175 works by the artist,
complemented by approximately sixty works by his contemporaries, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, scrolls, photographs, architectural models, ready-mades, wall reliefs, and films.

Born in Berlin in 1888, Richter attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy in Weimar, and the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1914 after World War I broke out, he was inducted into the German army and was seriously wounded within a few months. Soon after being discharged from military service in 1916, Richter joined the Zurich Dada Group and participated in several group exhibitions. In 1921, he produced his first abstract film, Rhythmus 21, and in 1923, he established and managed the avant-garde magazine G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung (G: Materials for Elemental Form-Creation). Avoiding the horrors of World War II in Europe, Richter emigrated to the United States and began teaching at the Institute of Film Techniques at the City College of New York. He continued collaborating with his contemporaries in different fields, such as Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, and in 1964 published his seminal book Dada: Art and Anti-Art, translated into nine languages. Throughout his career, Richter participated in over eighty exhibitions and is included in the collections of major museums across the world.

The 224-page catalogue Hans Richter: Encounters is co-published by LACMA and DelMonico Books/Prestel.

On the occasion of this exhibition and appearing in English for the first time is Encounters from Dada till Today by Hans Richter, which is being published as a print-on-demand and e-book by LACMA and DelMonico Books/Prestel in a translation by Christopher Middleton. First published in German in 1973, this volume documents in Richter’s own words the collaborative aspirations of a generation of modern artists — including
Joseph Cornell, Federico Fellini, and Hannah Höch, among others.

Florian Morlat's first solo exhibition at Cherry and Martin includes works made from materials like cardboard, paint, plaster and wood. It also features a selection of new cast and painted aluminum pieces. This is a new direction for the artist. Morlat has long incorporated everyday materials into his sculptures and wall works. In his first exhibition at Cherry and Martin, he goes even further, adding organic materials like straw, French bread, and bananas.

Morlat was born in Munich. The physical components of his work recall his roots in a German-language post-war artistic tradition. At the same time, Morlat's visual pursuits, particularly with regard to shape, suggest an aesthetic born of 1960s California pop culture - he's lived in the state almost 20 years -- and a familiarity with American modernist icons. In Morlat's work we sense the rawness of Franz West, the freedom of Alexander Calder, the poetry of David Smith. Florian Morlat's pieces are subjective, stylized representations of people and things; at the same time, they are objective investigations into form and mass, color and, especially, shape: the tension of an encounter with the 'one-sideness' of Morlat's pieces is only resolved through circumnavigating them and getting a sense of their totality from all sides.

Florian Morlat: Sticks and Stones, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2

Pt. 1 - 4 May - 1 June 1, 2013
Pt. 2 - 8 June - 6 July 2013

An engineer of imaginary worlds, in the past the Swiss-born artist Urs Fischer (b. 1973) has created sculptures in a rich variety of materials including unstable substances such as melting wax and rotting vegetables. In a continuous search for new plastic solutions, Fischer has built houses out of bread and given life to animated puppets; he has dissected objects or blown them out of proportion in order to reinvent our relationship to them. In 2007, in a now-legendary exhibition, he excavated the floor of his New York gallery, digging a crater within the exhibition space.

At MOCA Grand Avenue, Fischer presents a survey of works from the last two decades. Among the subjects addressed are his sly and humorous approach to the human figure as represented by a group of skeleton sculptures, partial figures seated on top of furniture, and the head shots of 1950s film stars similarly obscured and defaced. Everyday furniture and objects have experienced a material transformation as stiff structures droop and collapse and others magically appear suspended in space.

Throughout his work, with ambitious gestures and irreverent panache, Fischer explores the secret mechanisms of perception, combining a Pop immediacy with a neo-Baroque taste for the absurd.

According to Hammer Museum Ali Subotnick, Cyprien Gaillard's work manifests in a variety of forms from videos and photographs to collages and sculptures. In his work, he reflects upon meanings and memories of monuments and landscapes that have been erased and replaced by the effects of time and social and cultural transformation. The French artist (born 1980, Paris) investigates time and historical remembrance as demonstrated in forgotten monuments, wrecked ruins, and artifacts. During his residency at the Hammer, Gaillard traveled around California discovering hidden ruins, destroyed landscapes and other remnants of the recent past. This exhibition will feature an installation of recent sculpture and a series of photographs produced during his residency at the Museum.

Cyprien Gaillard has had numerous solo exhibitions, including those at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2012); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011, 2008); the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2011); the Zollamt/Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Germany; the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2010); the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany and the Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (2009). Most recently he had a solo show at MOMA P.S.1, New York which was on view through 18 March 2013.

An island at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Sicily occupied a pivotal place in antiquity between Greece, North Africa, and the Italian peninsula. Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome showcases ancient Sicily as a major center of cultural innovation from the fifth to the third
centuries B.C., when art, architecture, theater, poetry, philosophy, and science flourished and left an enduring stamp on mainland Greece and later on Rome.

The show features some 150 objects, a major portion on loan from institutions in Sicily, including stone and bronze sculptures, vase-paintings, votive terracotta statuettes and reliefs, carved ivory, gold and silver metalwork, jewelry, inscriptions, architectural revetments, and coins.

The Mozia Charioteer, widely considered one of the the finest surviving examples of Greek sculpture, serves as the exhibition’s centerpiece. Recently on view at the British Museum in London during the 2012 Summer Olympics, the statue has since undergone conservation treatment at the Getty Villa. Part of the Getty’s cultural agreement with Sicily, this 18-month collaborative conservation project involved remounting the sculpture and the provision of a seismic isolation base, which will accompany the object when it is reinstalled at the Whitaker Museum on the island of Mozia.

The triumphant Mozia Charioteer, discovered in 1979 on the island of Mozia in western Sicily, is believed to represent a charioteer who competed at Olympia on behalf of one of the Sicilian rulers. The extraordinary style of the sculpture, especially notable in the sinuous pleating of the long linen xystis that sheathes the figure’s athletic physique, is a tour-de-force of stone carving. Clearly a master of his craft, the sculptor was able to reveal the torso and limbs beneath the thin fabric. With its confident gaze and proud stance, this statue conveys the high level of originality and experimentation achieved by Greek sculptors working in Sicily.

Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome also examines how settlers from the Greek mainland brought their myths and religious practices to Sicily. To sanctify new colonies and maintain ties with mother cities, they built altars and temples to such gods as Apollo, the patron deity of colonists, as well as the deified hero Herakles. Included are terracotta heads of Apollo, Hades, and Persephone, created as cult or votive images of deities that played a central role in ancient Sicilian worship.

Rich harvests, bountiful seas, and a favorable trade location brought immense wealth to the Sicilian city-states, and the exhibition highlights their widespread reputation for luxurious lifestyles with five gilt-silver vessels, part of a larger group of fifteen. The silver treasure had been buried for safekeeping beneath the floor of a house in Morgantina during the Roman sack of the city in 211 B.C. The entire hoard comprises religious vessels as well as a set for the symposion, a convivial drinking party for men that was an important part of the social life of well-to-do Greeks.

This exhibition presents the work of two 20th-century photographers, Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto, who represent important but alternate paths in Japanese photography.

The Taishō era (1912–1926) was a brief but dynamic period in Japan’s history that ushered in a modern state with increased industrialization, shifting political parties, radical fashions, and liberal thinking in many areas. However, this era of heightened experimentation ended with the arrival of an international depression, the promotion of ultranationalism, and the country’s entry into what would become the Greater East Asia War.

Reflecting both sides of this dramatic transition, two disparate representations of modern Japan are displayed together in Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto, on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. Curated by Judith Keller, senior curator of photographs, and Amanda Maddox, assistant curator of photographs, the exhibition includes photographs from the Getty Museum’s permanent collection, the Toyko Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the estate of Hiroshi Hamaya, the Nagoya City Art Museum, and other public and private lenders.

Born during the Taishō era, photographers Hiroshi Hamaya (1915–1999) and Kansuke Yamamoto (1914–1987) responded to Japan’s rapidly-changing sociopolitical climate in very different ways. While Hamaya focused inward toward rural life on the back coast of Japan, Yamamoto found inspiration in the art of European Surrealists. As the ebb and flow of Japan’s political, economic, and social structures persisted across the 20th century, Hamaya and Yamamoto continued to pursue divergent paths, thus embodying both sides of modern Japanese life: the traditional and the Western, the rural and the urban, the oriental and the occidental.

This exhibition presents ten masterpieces of early Ming dynasty court painting executed in the 15th and early 16th centuries in the Forbidden City, in addition to a selection of related Zhe School paintings, all from the permanent collection of the Shanghai Museum. These paintings are of a type that is generally poorly represented in American museum collections, as the prevailing taste in collecting over the past century has been for literati (scholar-amateur) paintings. The exhibition explores the role of imperial patronage of Ming dynasty painters, paintings as political propaganda, and the revival of earlier Song dynasty (11th–13th century) painting styles for political purposes.

Five of the artists were court painters in the Forbidden City (the imperial palace) in Beijing, while the other five were gifted Ming professional painters whose works were stylistically and thematically related to those of the leading court masters.

Considered one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, Donald Judd pioneered Minimalism, an art movement that privileged conceptual framework over traditional craft or artistic skill. In his 1965 essay Specific Objects, Judd identified a new classification of artwork that falls into neither of the conventional categories of painting or sculpture. Judd utilized deceptively simple, pristine geometric forms as complex expressions of an aesthetic of wholeness or total impact, arguing that traditional illusionism and complicated composition dilute an artwork’s power. Judd explained, “Abstract art has its own integrity, not someone else’s ‘integrations’ with something else. Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, popularizing abstract art deprives art of its essence and depraves the artist’s artistic consciousness. Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all.”

General Director Plácido Domingo, whose parents were celebrated singers of zarzuela — the popular Spanish form of operetta — will perform as both singer and as conductor, leading the LA Opera Orchestra.

The soloists include soprano Janai Brugger, whose recent appearances include her Metropolitan Opera debut as Liu in Turandot and Musetta in La Bohème with LA Opera. Ms. Brugger is a former member of LA Opera’s Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program who in 2012 won three top awards at Operalia, the international vocal competition founded by Mr. Domingo. She will be joined by tenor Joshua Guerrero, a first-year member of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program, and by Uruguayan soprano María Antúnez, a 2011 Operalia semi-finalist who will create the title role in LA Opera’s May 2013 world premiere of Dulce Rosa by Lee Holdridge. Portions of the concert will be conducted by Spanish conductor Jordi Bernacer. The concert will be followed by the 15th annual Plácido Domingo Award presentation to soprano Ailyn Pérez.

Walt Disney Concert Hall
111 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Manuel Ponce: Sonata 
Silvestre Revuelta:Tres Piezas para violín y piano
Keith Jarrett: Sonata for Violin and Piano

Dances of J.S. Bach, Dances of Aztecs and Mayans
Works for Jarocha Harp

Jazz and Blues from Mexico and selections from Magos Herrera's new album "Mexico Azul"

Artists:

Magos Herrera, vocalist
Cuauhtemoc Rivera, violin
Horacio Franco, recorder 
Celso Duarte, harp
Stephen Prutsman, piano

The Abbey
2825 Fifth Avenue
Downtown San Diego, CA

Lee Holdridge: Dulce Rosa  
Librettist/Director: Richard Sparks

Based on a celebrated short story by Isabel Allende, Dulce Rosa relates the aftermath of a violent political uprising, as a young woman plans her revenge against a merciless attacker.

Plácido Domingo conducts a cast that includes Uruguayan soprano María Eugenia Antúnez in the title role. Dulce Rosa is the inaugural presentation of LA Opera Off Grand, a new initiative developed to bring LA Opera performances to a wider geographical area.

Plácido Domingo, conductor
Conductor: (June 6)Grant Gershon

Cast

Rosa: María Antúnez
Tadeo Cespedes: Alfredo Daza
Senator Orellano: Greg Fedderly
Aguilar: Craig Colclough
Inez: Peabody Southwell
Tomas: Benjamin Bliss

Scenic Designer: Yael Pardess
Projections: Jenny Okun
Costume Designer: Durinda Wood

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro
Libretto: Lorenzo Da Ponte based on the French comedy by Beaumarchais

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Jean Nouvel, installations
Azzedine Alaïa, costume designer
Christopher Alden, director
Aaron Black, lighting designer

Cast:

Christopher Maltman, Count Almaviva
Dorothea Röschmann, Countess Almaviva
Malin Christensson, Susanna
Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Figaro
Rachel Frenkel, Cherubino
Ann Murray, Marcellina
John Del Carlo, Bartolo
William Ferguson, Don Basilio
John Irvin, Don Curzio
Simone Osborne, Barbarina
Brandon Cedel, Antonio

Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, music director

7:30 pm

Walt Disney Concert Hall
111 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

During the past thirty-seven years Tom and The Heartbreakers have headlined some of worlds largest and most prestigious events including the legendary Isle of Wight Festival in the UK last year and the Super Bowl XLII Halftime show in 2008. This year the band will return to The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, TN for their second headlining appearance and will also headline Alabama’s Hangout Music Festival and Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival.

Born in Medellin, Colombia, on August 9, 1972, Juanes  has perfected his distinctive fusion of rock with traditional Colombian rhythms (such as Vallenato, Cumbia and Mapale), as well as other international styles including Flamenco, Troba, Bolero and Tango.

Both as guitarist and socially conscious songwriter, Juanes is now often mentioned alongside artists such as Bono and Bruce Springsteen for his belief in the possibility of social change through music. Juanes’ musical message of peace confronts the violence of his native Colombia’s continued struggle notably the dangers of landmines in both Colombia and across the world. And while conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan grab headlines, Colombia's war kills 3,500 people ---- mostly civilians ---- every year. Another 3,000 Colombians are kidnapped each year. And the conflict is seemingly endless: two Marxist rebel groups, funded by drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping, have been battling a succession of elected governments for 40 years.